Scary Lockdown- Sorta…

I live in a small neighborhood with rather nice people. When something happens here it makes the news. From the years I’ve lived here I’ve only had about 3 “bad” incidents. One of those 3 things was a lock-down. Not like a practice lock-down, a real one.

So I was in elementary school and as far as I remember it was a Tuesday, sometime in December. I remember this being a few days after my birthday so I had just turned about 10 years old. I was in another classroom for RTII, or as our school called it “power hour.” It was literally just RTII under a different name.

Me and a few friends were in a group learning about polar bears for some reason. We are talking about where they live, why they’re white, etc. We talked about this stuff for nearly 15 minutes before the loud-speaker came on. The lady on the loud-speaker said in a rather scared tone “please get your coats on.”

As I said, I was in another class and my coat was somewhere else so I had to leave the class to get my coat. The teacher told me it wasn’t necessary and that I just sit back down, so I did. Me and my friends went back to talking about polar bears for around 15 seconds before the loud-speaker came on again. “Lock down” she called 3 times. Being in the 4th grade, I was terrified, I ran over to the area where the book-bags were and hid. Around 10 other kids and the teacher came flooding in after us.

We hid in that small, cramped spot for nearly 15 minutes. It was pouring rain, there was thunder and lightning booming and flashing outside. Kids were crying and others were hugging each-other saying it’d be okay. The teacher kept shushing us and telling us to be quiet. I have no idea how that teacher could keep her chill in such a scary situation.

After about 30 minutes of being stuck in that small area the lady on the loud-speaker came back on. Our class was relieved and started getting up, but then the loud-speaker quickly went back off. Then… The fire alarm just went off. Kids were screaming, and more kids were crying then before. We all ran to the door to rush out while our teacher chased after us.

We got yelled at and were told to get in a straight line and to shut our mouths. We smelled smoke coming from the end of the hallway while kids ran out of their classrooms. Kids were screaming that they didn’t want to die. My grade couldn’t say anything because we were the oldest grade and we were “the role models” or so our teachers said.

Us, the 4th graders, were the last ones out of the building. Scary as fuck for us but no one was burned, left behind, or any of that. We got outside and the second we got outside there was a cold gust of air. I had never been this cold in my life. My friend tried to hug me and walk me around to warm me up but nothing worked. Eventually my RTII teacher gave me and my friend her coat to share.

My friend and I were letting people use it for about a minute for those who needed it. Kids were scrambling to find their teachers, others just running to get a coat. All of us were outside for around 2 hours. Police cars, fire men, everything, they were all there in this event. Buses were called over to the school and everyone was brought to somewhere safe.

The school didn’t burn down or anything so therefore we had to go to school the next day. When we went to school the next day we figured out why this happened. Someone started a fire and another person made a bomb threat. To this day no one knows who did this but personally I don’t ever want to figure out who it was.